In a frontal attack on Narendra Modi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday said there were several question marks over Gujarat model of development and accused him and BJP of resorting to falsehood and twisting facts to target rivals.
Addressing a rally, he blamed BJP for bringing down the standard of political discourse and vitiating atmosphere with its "politics of negativism and separatism", asking people to "think seriously" what the party which believes in "demeaning others" will do to the country.
"The BJP leader from Gujarat is always talking about the Gujarat model of development. But it is well known that several question marks were raised over the Gujarat model of development.
"The model need not work for the whole country. India is a very vast country where only one model of development could not work for all the regions," he said at the election meeting at the Wright Town stadium.
Singh also took a dig at Modi for making "several goof-ups in matters relating to history".
"This showed what kind of a man he is," Singh said in the hard-hitting speech.
"In his zeal to malign others, a big BJP leader often resorts to falsehoods. He frequently distorts historical facts. Once in his enthusiasm to attack Congress, he misrepresented facts about a leader who is respected a lot in BJP," he said.
Singh took jibes at BJP and said its enthusiasm was confined to criticising others. It was only interested in leveling personal attacks on other leaders, he said.
"It is good for our democracy that political parties have enthusiasm. But it should be for constructive work. This should be used to tell people what good they will do if voted to power. It seems to me, though, that the enthusiasm of BJP leaders is all about condemning others," he said.
"In the last few months, we are seeing a lot of negative politics and the standard of political debate has gone down drastically," Singh said, accusing BJP of starting it all.
The Prime Minister said the saffron party need to change its ideology. "BJP is practising politics of negativism and separatism. With this, it can never hope to usher in any kind of development. I think there is a need for the BJP to change its ideology," the Prime Minister said.
The Prime Minister noted that over the past few days the BJP had been praising several Congress leaders from the past. "It is a matter of happiness for my party. Such men were not only leaders of the Congress, but of the whole country," Singh said.
The Prime Minister said, "The BJP should never forget that it was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who had first imposed a ban on RSS for being allegedly involved in communal activities."
He said that a large section of the society has benefited by the work carried out by the UPA government.
Asking the opposition to look at UPA's record before levelling allegations of lack of development under its rule, he said the country achieved record growth in last nine years.
"No other decade has seen economic growth at such a rate. Poverty has come down to a third as compared to the past. Income in the rural areas has grown at a faster rate," he said and referred RTE Act, food security scheme and NREGA.
He asked people to defeat Shivraj Singh Chouhan government in Madhya Pradesh, saying the BJP-ruled state lags on several development indices like infant mortality, literacy among women and sex ratio.
"The condition of roads is very poor. Looking at these facts I am surprised that BJP leaders speak about its development," the Prime Minister said.
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